Digital manufacturing of biocompatible metal frameworks for complex dental prostheses by means of SLS/SLM

In recent years, digitizing and automation have gained an important place in the manufacturing of medical products. However, many dental parts are still being produced by manual and inefficient conventional methods. This paper presents a fully digital and fast procedure for the design and manufacturing of implant-supported frameworks for complex dental prostheses by means of Selective Laser Sintering (SLS) or Selective Laser Melting (SLM). Offering a digital solution to the dental profession implies a real challenge because patient and dentist set high requirements on quality, material and precision. During this study, frameworks were manufactured by SLS/SLM of stainless steel, Ti6Al4V and a dental CoCr-alloy. The accuracy of the final framework has been analyzed by studying the error accumulation of the successive steps in the proposed procedure. SLS/SLM allows an efficient and customized production of the complex biocompatible frameworks without lengthy manual pre- or post-processing and with a medically acceptable accuracy corresponding to the precision of a conventionally fabricated framework. © 2005 Taylor & Francis Group.